I’ve never had a nanny. Nannies are what upper middle class parents substitute for themselves when they’re too busy, or just can’t be arsed, to actually parent their children prior to sending them off to boarding school. I had real parents. They couldn’t afford nannies or private schools but still nevertheless somehow managed, with their unique parenting style, to fit in a fair bit of nanying in spite of everything.
Mary Poppins being the exception that proves the rule, the business of nannying has a fairly bad reputation generally speaking. Think of being nannied and you’re in a suffocating world, there’s an overblown sense of danger and you’re inhibited from playful exploration by a risk averse regime which is aimed at making everything safe. The result is a bland and unchallenging life for everyone.
Nanny States are the pendulum swing opposite of Laissez-Faire regimes. Statutory regulation proliferation is the order of the day and individuals are no longer trusted to regulate themselves responsibly. This all occurs in the context of an exaggerated sense of danger driven by the pincer movement of media sensationalist hysteria on the one arm and a whipped-up encouragement for people to complain and litigate when ‘things go wrong’ on the other. Regulation is especially aimed at powerful and respected groups within the emerging nanny society, who are perceived by the system as a threat to the process of power centralization. The net effect is that control is exerted through fear and an insistence that procedures are carried out following uniform protocols. The justification for the imposition of regulation is on the basis of a few horror stories of what happens when things aren’t regulated. The nurse Beverly Allitt. The Doctor Harrold Shipman.
The current administration is increasingly accused of nannying. And it’s true that we’re told what we should and shouldn’t be eating and how we should be exercising. Our teachers are monitored for how well or poorly they teach, and our doctors and nurses are forced to manage our ailments through protocol driven, relationship devoid, care pathways.
Yet without this nannying, which abolished section 28, it would not be seen as reasonable for teachers to talk about gay lifestyles without fear of being prosecuted for ‘promoting pretend family values’. Without this nannying plans would not be afoot for homophobic bullying to be taken as seriously as sexist or racist bullying in our schools next year. Gay and lesbian 16 year olds would still be criminalized, deprived of safe sex advice and made to feel like freaks. We would still be unequally treated regarding our rights as civil partners and as potential adoptive and foster parents.
Prior to this administration people couldn’t be trusted to regulate their bigoted behaviour and homophobia was enshrined in our society’s legislation.
So, for all the drawbacks of living in a nanny state, we haven’t really done that badly out of it. Maybe for some reason, Nanny has a soft spot for us queer folk. If it carries on being this good I could even get to enjoy being nannied. Next stop Paraphilic Infantilism! Anyone for nappies?
